I've been a stake clerk for many years and have utilized the messaging system in the old LUWS and am now using it in the Leader and Clerk Resources section of the tools. It was working great for me until the last update a couple of weeks ago. I have many leaders (including most of the bishops) that have opted out from receiving emails with their LDS Account. Prior to the update, I could still utilize the messaging system to send them administrative messages (though there was the bug that if they opted out you could still see their email addresses). After the update, I can't send them messages.

I know that they have opted out so they don't get everybody and their dog sending them emails but my job in communicating with leaders just got that much harder (and just as I felt like the tools were getting really good). I understand outside of the United States that there are very strict privacy laws that have to be observed but it would make a lot of sense to have some way to have leaders do opt in to leader related emails but opt out of general emails. That would be a way to satisfy privacy laws but allow the stake or bishoprics to communicate with leaders under their stewardship.

I second Jason's concern. I would like to see a way for individuals to opt-in to messages from the ward leadership and opt-out of having their e-mail address show up on the ward directory. I don't mind mine being in both places, but since a recent update made it so we can no longer send e-mails to members of the ward council through the "Send a Message" link. The response I get from those who used to get my e-mails is that they used to get them and they have changed nothing, so they can't understand what might be wrong.

One of the issues seemed to be, before this 'fix', that even though I was warned that someone wanted their e-mail address kept private, and I was willing to do that, it ended up in the list of recipients in the To: field, so everyone saw the e-mail address anyway. I am wondering why those e-mails weren't blind-copied for the sake of maintaining the privacy... I could see allowing leadership the ability to send a message (as an option in the LDS Account, for example) while still keeping the e-mail address private for the directory, and using blind-copy for those who had those settings, for leadership-type e-mails.

Is there a chance that this is already in the works? I can go back to forwarding my own copy of my message to individual e-mail addresses, but it seems like we can find a workable solution that won't run afoul of privacy laws.

dobrichelovek wrote:I second Jason's concern. I would like to see a way for individuals to opt-in to messages from the ward leadership and opt-out of having their e-mail address show up on the ward directory. I don't mind mine being in both places, but since a recent update made it so we can no longer send e-mails to members of the ward council through the "Send a Message" link. The response I get from those who used to get my e-mails is that they used to get them and they have changed nothing, so they can't understand what might be wrong.

One of the issues seemed to be, before this 'fix', that even though I was warned that someone wanted their e-mail address kept private, and I was willing to do that, it ended up in the list of recipients in the To: field, so everyone saw the e-mail address anyway. I am wondering why those e-mails weren't blind-copied for the sake of maintaining the privacy... I could see allowing leadership the ability to send a message (as an option in the LDS Account, for example) while still keeping the e-mail address private for the directory, and using blind-copy for those who had those settings, for leadership-type e-mails.

It's less useful than it might seem - someone will reply-to-all as part of a discussion and all the BCC recipients will get missed out.

I have a different email for church - bishop@liddicott.com, my stake president does the same. That works well because it is role-based and helps us maintain privacy, but for many it won't make sense to do that, or will be too inconvenient to manage.

It also comes with complexities if ward members equate that with the person and continue to use it after they are released; further, unless the person is crafty, when they send emails (reply-to-all) they will reveal their real address.